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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24973300">Oh, Neil! Neil! Orange Peel!</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/scumbaganarchy/pseuds/scumbaganarchy'>scumbaganarchy</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Young Ones (TV 1982)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Fluff, Guilt, Late Night Conversations, M/M, Sharing a Bed, also i had an idea and it wouldn't go away, just me branching out into writing for other ships, rick is feeling sick, this is set after Sick</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 00:49:41</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,915</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24973300</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/scumbaganarchy/pseuds/scumbaganarchy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>The night after Rick sows Neil and nature grows him, the People's Poet is struggling to sleep. Perhaps a conversation between the two of them is in order...</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Neil Wheedon Watkins Pye/Rick (Young Ones)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>10</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Oh, Neil! Neil! Orange Peel!</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Hello, hello!<br/>I thought I'd write this in between other things, as a sort of break. Plus, I've never really written anything for PoetPye and this scenario screamed PoetPye at me. XD This is set after Sick and requires you to believe that Rick actually felt a little bad about killing Neil, not just scared that he would get in trouble for it. I do have vague ideas about certain inner conflicts Rick would have to deal with before he had a more positive - and even romantic - relationship with Neil, however this fic is mainly just about one tiny baby step. Who knows, I could write a longer PoetPye fic one day?<br/>Oh! And don't fear - Rivyan is still my scumbag OTP, I just like considering different possibilities.<br/>I hope you enjoy! :)</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>This was torturous.</p><p>Not only had Rick’s cold returned with a vengeance now that he was thoroughly exhausted and trying to get to sleep, his ruddy conscience <em>still</em> wouldn’t shut up about the events in the garden. It was so unfair and just bloody typical of his luck. Why was this happening? Neil was back now, the hippie bastard, Rick wasn’t a murderer – why in Cliff’s name hadn’t the rotten feeling from earlier gone away?</p><p>“You know why it hasn’t gone away, matey!” his conscience taunted him.</p><p>He groaned and rolled over again to face the wall separating his room from Neil’s. Funnily enough, Rick didn’t actually recall anyone coming in to fix this wall after Vyvyan’s vodka bomb had blown it up…</p><p>“Oi! I’m talking to you-”</p><p>“Yes, I know! I wish you’d shut up and talk to someone else!” he snapped, burying his head under his crusty pillow.</p><p>“What? Shut up <em>and</em> talk to someone else?” his conscience snorted, “You must be even sicker than you look!”</p><p>That was it. With a loud huff of frustration, Rick swung himself up off the bed. For the slightest moment, he felt his knees buckle at the sudden weight they were now supporting and his head throbbed warningly. Urgh, he was <em>not</em> well. The poet laid a hand against the wall to steady himself, sneezing rather violently and blinking hard.</p><p>“Neil…” he muttered, “Go and find Neil…”</p><p>His conscience sniggered; he was sure of it.</p><p>To be honest, Rick was mildly embarrassed by how long it took him to drag himself from his bedside to the door to Neil’s room, especially considering that it was literally next to his own. He was about to knock and wait to be let in when he remembered that he was a big-bottomed anarchist who didn’t ask permission to do anything.</p><p>WHAM.</p><p>“<em>Neil</em>!” Rick moaned, voice more stuffed up than usual.</p><p>His snotty nose had unfortunately prevented him from sounding as cutting as he would have liked and he rubbed at it irritably with his sleeve. That was <em>just</em> what he needed to do: show weakness in front of Neil! Disgustingly, the dirty fabric of his sleeve came away from his face noticeably <em>greener</em> than before. Ruddy great.</p><p>“Rick?”</p><p>A surprised Neil was sat in the middle of the room, legs crossed, on some sort of mat – it looked old and quite ratty but Rick could just about make out the faint tie dye colouring underneath all the dirt. His bed was completely untouched… oh, of course! Neil didn’t really go to bed, did he? The stupid hippie. Rick was about to start sneering at him when his conscience piped up again.</p><p>“Come to do it again have you, Nazi? Suddenly gotten a taste for killing innocents?”</p><p>He groaned aloud, having to use the wall once more to prop himself up thanks to his pounding head. If Rick had been watching Neil more closely – which he wasn’t – he would have seen a look of concern unfolding across his naturally miserable features. Once the poet had gathered his thoughts, he let out a wheezing sigh.</p><p>“Neil, I… I need you to forgive me for killing you, alright?” he told him.</p><p>It wasn’t a request; Rick wasn’t going to beg him. No, he had worded that deliberately to ensure he wasn’t <em>apologising</em> to Neil. Cliff perish the thought! As it was, even the measle he had offered the hippie was making him blush furiously, which he hoped would be put down to his cold. Rick just needed forgiveness and then he could move on with his evening and maybe finally get some blummin’ sleep! This was humiliating enough – why was he still so ill when Neil seemed to be fine? Did his conscience wield <em>that</em> <em>much</em> power over him?</p><p>“You bet I do, matey-”</p><p>“Oh. That’s okay, Rick,” Neil replied, silencing the voice in Rick’s head.</p><p>There were a few seconds of silence. Only the sounds of the odd distant car were audible to the ear.</p><p>“You… it’s <em>okay</em>?” Rick repeated.</p><p>He didn’t believe this. Since when was murder in anyway <em>okay</em>? Weren’t hippies meant to be explicitly against that sort of thing!? Wasn’t Neil a <em>pacifist</em>!?</p><p>“Yeah, man,” Neil reiterated, “I mean, I’d be grateful if you didn’t, like, do it again or anything but if it’s bothering you so much then – yeah, I forgive you.”</p><p>Rick blinked at him drowsily, still not fully processing this.</p><p>“And the other two?” he prompted.</p><p>“Well, you didn’t technically kill those two, Rick. You sowed them,” Neil reminded him, “But they’ve wandered off, anyway. Not even, like, exact identical copies of me want to hang around me.”</p><p>And there it was: the moping. <em>This</em> was why Rick had killed Neil.</p><p>Oh Cliff, he was openly admitting it now! He was someone who was capable of cold-blooded killing, a murderer, no better than Thatcher. Oh no, he was <em>worse</em> than Thatcher! How could he go on as the People’s Poet now?</p><p>“Woah… Rick, man…”</p><p>He hadn’t realised, but a pathetic little whimper had somehow found its way out of his mouth. Neil had stood up and come to help him, as unbelievable as that seemed to Rick. Honestly, he <em>tried</em> to resist… well, he <em>wanted</em> to resist… well, he <em>wanted</em> to <em>try</em> to resist… but he couldn’t. So he didn’t. He let Neil guide him to the bed that hadn’t been slept in and didn’t complain when Neil wrapped the grotty blankets around him.</p><p>“Do you, like, want me to turn the lights off?” the hippie asked, deliberately soft.</p><p>Rick blinked up at him blearily, acutely aware of the worry in Neil’s dark eyes and the frown lines etched into his face. They confused him. Why was Neil acting like he cared? Before too much time could pass, Rick shook his head – although he wasn’t sure why, it wasn’t as if having the lights on benefitted <em>him</em>.</p><p>“No, you can pretend I’m not here…” he found himself saying instead.</p><p>Neil nodded.</p><p>“Alright, man. Try and sleep, yeah? Maybe you were the most ill all along,” he mused.</p><p>Rick tried to laugh, though regrettably all he managed to produce was a snotty snort. Still, Neil didn’t appear to mind – he returned to his worn-out mat on the floor and resumed a position Rick was fairly certain was for meditating.</p><p>How exactly was this going to wash with Mike and Vyvyan in the morning? Rick curled up in Neil’s bed for no apparent reason? He knew how their minds worked because they were wired the same way his was: they would assume something <em>funny</em> had happened. Shouldn’t that be motivation enough for him to stop this weird, unprecedently nice set-up the two of them had going at the moment? Surely he was still able to make it back to his own room and sleep there.</p><p>No one answered him. Rick bit his chapped lower lip.</p><p>Had Neil done that? Magically gotten rid of his bullying conscience? Maybe it would return if he left for his own bed… yes, maybe it was best if Rick stayed here. Just for tonight! This wouldn’t happen again, why ever should it?</p><p>“Neil?” Rick asked quietly.</p><p>He was half hoping that he wouldn’t hear him and his ego could remain unchallenged. This wouldn’t be like anything Rick had ever said to Neil before and it was perhaps this very terrifying fact that ensured Neil <em>did</em> hear Rick and turn around to face him once more.</p><p>“Yeah?”</p><p>A sudden jolt passed through the poet like a forewarning. He cleared his throat and closed his eyes so at least he wouldn’t have to look at Neil as he said it.</p><p>“I’m… sorry I killed you,” he confessed, feeling small and horrible and gross, “You really do annoy me sometimes- <em>most</em> of the time… but I didn’t <em>mean</em> to kill you! I swear!”</p><p>Now, just why had he gone and ruddy said <em>that</em>!? Apologising was the <em>one</em> thing he was most certain he wasn’t about to do when he had first ambled towards Neil’s room. Today really had been such a stinker of a day.</p><p>“Oh…”</p><p>Rick opened his eyes abruptly at the close proximity of Neil’s voice – he was perched on the side of the bed, gazing down at Rick strangely. For his own sanity more than anything else, Rick tried to glare at him like everything was fine and normal. However, all his face managed to contort into was a pained grimace. His cheeks felt hot.</p><p>“I- I-”</p><p>“You don’t have to cry, Rick,” Neil said gently.</p><p>Oh, <em>bloody hell</em>! He was crying now too!? Was this what they meant when they said no good deed went unpunished? Or, rather, no <em>bad</em> deed that you torture yourself over and then apologise for whilst stealing your victim’s bed went unpunished?</p><p>“Are- are you going to tell the others it was me?” Rick asked him, hating how scared he sounded, “Are you going to tell them about this?”</p><p>Almost instantly, Neil was shaking his head, greasy hair flopping about from side to side. He laid a hand on Rick’s knee, unknowingly almost giving the distressed poet a heart attack.</p><p>“I won’t tell anyone, man. You’ve never been this nice to me, it would be really stupid of me to, like, throw it back in your face,” he assured him.</p><p>
  <em>But you are really stupid!</em>
</p><p>
  <em>I hate you!</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Your face is ugly and sad!</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Go and eat some lentils, you no-good hippie!</em>
</p><p>The typical insults Rick could have pulled out in defence just fell wrong and unfair. He took in a deep breath and nodded faintly.</p><p>“Thank you…”</p><p>And he meant it.</p><p>Neil smiled at him – a smile! Rick didn’t think he had ever seen Neil smile like that before as it was actually quite beautiful. Unexpectedly beautiful, like the caterpillar that turns into a butterfly when thought to be a moth. Not that there was anything wrong with moths. Huh? What on <em>earth</em> was this cold doing to Rick’s sense of poetic imagery?</p><p>More importantly, why was he finding <em>Neil bloody Pye</em> beautiful?</p><p>Ah well… tomorrow was a new day…</p><p>The rest of the night wasn’t as eventful – if a short conversation between a couple of meandering students could be called <em>eventful</em> – and even if it had been, Rick wouldn’t have known. The poet fell asleep not long after his frank admission, his conscience eased by Neil’s undeserved empathy. As for the hippie who had recently returned from the dead himself, he found he couldn’t quite get back into meditating, not when he knew Rick was sleeping in his bed right behind him. He didn’t want to be creepy and watch him as he slumbered, yet he wasn’t sure that Rick would tolerate waking up to find Neil dosing against him.</p><p>In the end, the two of them did share the previously unslept in bed: Rick curled up around the head and Neil angled around him at the bottom, so as not to disturb him. It wasn’t ideal and it probably wasn’t awfully comfortable for one of them but, when Rick would awake the next afternoon, still groggy and sore but not nearly so upset, he would return Neil’s smile from the night before.</p><p>Even <em>if</em> he couldn’t return it to him when Neil was awake yet, it was a start, wasn’t it? All great things had to start somewhere, as someone radical and exciting had probably said once. Maybe that someone could be Rick.</p>
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